


Synchronicity

by Dream5_3nd



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Dates, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Insecure Dan Howell, M/M, Nervous Phil Lester, Reality, Snapshots, Strangers to Friends, Vague descriptions of Anxiety
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-15 05:36:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12314793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dream5_3nd/pseuds/Dream5_3nd
Summary: A delve into the history of meaningful dates, both numerical and romantic in persuasion.Starting in 2009 and spanning towards 2017,  perhaps beyond. We look at the meaningful coincidences of two hearts intertwining into a complex system of love, lust, and laughter, without sugarcoating the hardships, the hurt and the heat that comes with being not only best friends, boyfriends, creators, and co-founders.





	1. Holding My Feelings in My Heart

Clicking subscribe was the beginning. It was the beginning the something unknown and everything seemed like it should feel wrong, but with every click, every re-watch there was nothing but a feeling of how right it was.

Trailing through the few videos Youtube hosted, was a past-time to distract Dan away from dwelling on things that fuelled his anxiety. His indecision about University and where he stood in the world, if he had a purpose and what would his foot print be when he was gone. Would anyone remember him? The creative videos were a distraction in all sense of the word. Distractions however, have a nasty habit of forming into human sizes obsessions and grow beyond their title of 'distraction'. To pique his interest every time in such away that made Dan constantly want more. Watch, re-watch, comment. Rinse and repeat.

The discover of AmazingPhil was, well, in no better words Amazing. Dans vocabulary could never really grasp the full extent of Phil. The English language didn't hold enough adjectives to describe him. Phil was Phil. Amazing. If asked what he was watching, the concept of Phil left Dan tongue tied and mouth like sand paper. Unable to fully explain that this beautiful man had captured his interest and kept hold of it with his creativity, humour and ability to always look on the bright side of things. A juxtaposition with legs. His appearance told the people in Dans life all they needed, when in reality they had only scratched the surface of the complex things that made up Phil.

Eventually just being silent and watching wasn't enough. Small comments here and there, positive feedback, some ideas on how to make things even more amazing than they already were. A shout into the void that felt like it would never get noticed. Indeed, it looked like it wouldn't be noticed until it did.

Which led to now.

Laying in the confides of his bed racked with guilt, because instead of daydreaming about the dates he should go on with his girlfriend, hes thinking of Phil. God. Phil would be a dream wrapped up in all of his fantasies. The array of dreamed dates are endless. Uncertain situations to confident adults, comfortable with each others quirks and bodies.  
Phil leading him up the steps of a dark cinema and sneaking kisses on his jaw. Dan chasing Phil through his house with hands covered in flour, yelling affectionate curses at the older of the two. Both wrapped up in blankets in front of the Tv sleeping happily in each others space while something plays aimlessly in the background.  
Having a vivid imagination was a blissful gift and somewhat an evil curse.  
For now the images of Phils shaggy hair falling into his eyes just so, that Dan could reach across and like a cliche, brush Phil's hair out of his eyes. Phil angling his body forward, tangling his feet with Dans own. The small reassuring contact that made Dans' insides glow with sunshine, only to fade away abruptly with a yell of his mothers familiar voice from downstairs.

Which is what he got for being in his room all day re-watching a cute boys videos to the point he could quote them in your sleep. Tell you the time-stamp from the audio.

His girlfriend used to joke of his little 'guy crush' and of him being a 'fanboy' but the reality of her words were always a knife to Dans chest. As she spoke the truth so freely without knowing how much weight the topic had, how accurate she was with her words. In some regard she was cruelly twisting a knife in Dans heart as a constant reminder of what he could never have and should dream to want.

Sighing to himself, he rolled over, flopping face-down onto the other side of his bed. After reassuring his Mum that he was, indeed, alive; he curled around his pillow. Angling his body in a way that he could pretend it was a manly chest and not the soft breasts of his girlfriend. Attempting to rationalise that Phil was just some guy. Somewhere. Almost like a celebrity. Only it felt like so much more, because a celebrity shouldn't ignite a passion within Dan that he thought didn't exist - shouldn't exist.

Drifting into a restless sleep filled of 'what ifs' and 'maybes', Dan smooshed his face into the grey case. Breathing deeply, inhaling the lavender scent his Mum said would help him sleep. He attempted to release the tension in his shoulders all the way down to his toes. Thinking of an army of small toy soldiers carrying his worries away as they ran into or away from battle. He wasn't too sure.

Within the umbrella of darkness, an ominous glow omitted from the phone laying discarded on the floor. The owner long sweeped away into the land of dreams, the screen glowed like a beacon beckoning the owner to peer at its contense. To be awake and to attention. It dimmed. Glowing a minute later the screen read:

Twitter  
@AmazingPhil

Hello ^_^


	2. Hope Blooms in the Darkness

There was no ominous, somewhat annoying, tick and tock of a clock. No artificial reminders of what was to come. There was no real need to plaster reminders on the walls of the time and place and how- how could Dan forget that tonight things were going to change.

There was no need for reminders when his mind wouldn't let him forget. Not like he wanted to or could forget that tonight he was meant to be seeing Phil. Phil, unfiltered without the need for his niches that are in his videos or his creative ideas to be on the foreground. Just Phil. That thought popped up in his brain more and more the closer the 'deadline' got. There was no real tangible reason why Dans anxiety was through the roof, or why he had barely ate when fear was curdling inside his stomach.

While messaging constantly allowed Dan to slowly pick apart AmazingPhil and JustPhil, the two parts of the same person blurred endlessly into each other. Messaging was easy. If Dan got too overwhelmed or focused too much on a message, or blushed so profusely that his cheeks had a permanent stain of pink, it was no one else’s business but his own. His own thoughts to squish down.

>New Message: Phil =^_^=  
\- Soon!!! :3

The reality of the situation was that Dan had no reason for his thoughts to suffocate him. Phil knew he had a tendency to overthink sometimes, (sure, he didn't know how often 'sometimes' was) he teased Dan when he had a vague idea that he was blushing, because Phil was nothing if honest about what he thought and felt. It was the ease with his emotions that Dan envied. He didn't know how to articulate that he should feel bad that him and his ex broke up, that he should feel sad that she blamed his lack of interest in her and that they couldn't do 'distance' (she meant she couldn't do the distant). Only he didn't feel bad, he only felt relief because now he could dream of blue pearls and lions in peace without being consumed by guilt.

He couldn't call it love nor lust, but there was a blossoming feeling of warmth in his chest whenever he thought of the older boy. It wasn't comparable to anything in his short life that he had experienced.

Starting up skype on his desktop, the blue bubble loading on the screen and the wooshing noise from the speakers sounded loudly. Startling him, he almost fell backwards on his chair.

_It's just Phil. Stop freaking out._

Taking some deep breaths. In. Out. It was comical how nervous Dan was. In reality there would likely be no change; they connected as quickly as two complete strangers off the internet could. Connected as quickly as an idol and a fan ever could.

The only difference would be that Phil would be able to see Dans unfiltered reactions to what he says, in the grainy quality of the cheap webcam he owns. For Dan to be able to wish even more fervently than now that he could sweep his hand against Phils cheek or to run his fingers through his long - somewhat - tamed hair. The only difference is that Dan would let himself feel. To cultivate the small blooming bud inside his belly. The same bud that up until now he had been pouring weed killer on in an attempt to squash it, only it kept attempting to bloom.

Navigating the window he saw Phils profile icon and skimming over the message typed there. Dan quirked a smile at the reference. He hovers his cursor over the call icon. Nerves claw up his spine. In. Out. Breathe.

Startled, Dan didn't need to psych himself up to start the video call anyway as Phil beat him to it. Staring at the screen he swallowed his anxiety and clicked accept and with a pop from skype he was met with Phils face.

Phils stupidly adorable face.

There was of course an awkward pause. A moment where both boys formed a mental representation of who was actually in front of them, to truly process that this was happening, that they were actually staring at each other grinning ear to ear.

They both let out laughs. Bold belly laughs that only came with the ease of years worth of sharing space, only this was their first meeting.

Phil began with: “Why are we both so nervous?” in a deeply northern and slightly breathless voice, as if the breath was knocked out from his lungs. Perhaps the impact from the sight of the person sitting in front of him inside the pixels of his screen metaphorically blew him away.

“I literally have no idea.”

Just like that the ice was broken between the two and conversation flowed between the them. Anecdotes, videos ideas, jokes, the topics were endless. It was an easy comfort, mutual understanding that they weren’t wrong about each other. That they were indeed the person they had been speaking to for months, it was a confirmation that neither knew they needed but were thankful to have.

It continued way into the night, the light casting a sleepy blanket around the two, curling around their laptops because hanging up meant either this was real and that it had to end or it was a dream and once either ended the call they would wake up lonely and empty.

In the end, neither needed to hang-up as Phils laptop ended it for them by running out of battery.

> Phil =^_^=  
AHHH nooo i didnt want to go so soon D:

> Dan :3  
Haha i think we been skyping for 12 years;)

> Phil =^_^=   
I guess this is good night then :c

> Dan :3  
Goodnight you spork

> Phil =^_^=   
 <3

It was ironic that a symbol could could inspire so many mixed emotions. That something literally meaning ‘less than 3’ could also convey such a large complex emotion and also mean something different depending on which context it was used. 

A heart. 

The blooming bud in Dans belly buzzed with ants. He had no idea how to respond to it. Or if he should. Did Phil mean it in a friendly way? Or in another way? Letting out a frustrated sigh, he pushed away all thoughts about what it could mean.

Instead, he sent back a heart of his own and decided while a lot of the time he had the pleasure to stew with his own thoughts and be ridden with complicated equations of what he should have done vs what he did do. Phil was as uncomplicated as 1+1. He  wasn’t a substitution, or some formulae to be used to find an answer.

He was an answer. 

And if Dan hoped Phil meant it in a specific way, well, the night sky and the moon were his only witnesses.

> Dan :3  
<3 


	3. (Fear is) Lurking in the Darkness

The plans were made.

Endless Skype calls and text messaging blurred into one another, neither measured their time in specific numbers or figures but in the moments they had with each other. It seemed surreal that Phil hasn't even known this person for a year, yet it feels as if they had been good friends for years.    
  
Phil had a hard time believing someone as complex and amazing as Dan existed, sometimes late at night he had to pinch himself to let himself know that what was happening is real. That Phil has met his figurative other half...although he wouldn’t mind him to be his actual other half, by the other definition of the phrase, because it felt like Phil had been searching for someone for so long, that now he had thought he had found them he was being far too cautious as he didn't want to lose what he had only just gained. 

“Did you know that bees have a system of democracy for when they need to find a new place for the hive?”

Dan turned around from his position on the other side of his room. They had been Skyping for the last few hours and it had calmed from catching up on each others days, to sitting in comfortable silence, both doing separate things in their rooms but connected through the pixels of their screens. It’s staggering how their chats had changed, from awkwardly saying too much too quickly to not needing to say anything. Dan moved towards his screen with a bemused expression on his face, sliding into the chair and fully facing Phil on the screen.

“What the fuck?” He made a 'go on' gesture with his hand as if he was genuinely interested. 

“Yeah!” Phil, surprised he was being taken seriously,  rearranged his limbs into a more comfortable position (not that it looked all that comfortable). “They dance as well! And the workers bees do a little booty shake when they find a new house and if the queen likes it she’ll do the same booty shake as well.” Dan was still looking very confused but was dimpling at him. “So, like, it gets a bit dark and then the queen sort of brainwashes her workers? It’s really weird.”

Trailing off in his sentence, Phil allowed  it to linger between the two, once again getting absorbed into the article he was reading. Dan took in Phils appearance while he was briefly unaware. His hair pushed over onto one side of his face, where he keeps twitching his head to the same side where stray locks keep falling into his eyes. Phil flicked his eyes upwards briefly, catching Dans soft look and turning his face upwards making a goofy beaming smile.

Dan smiled back and huffed a laugh, once again getting up and padding over to the other side of the room. “Have you almost packed everything yet? I’m so excited for you to get here.” Dan threw a thumbs up behind his back, while rummaging in a chest of drawers with his other.

Phil placed his chin into his hands. Staring at the boy being projected through his laptop, the boy who has several train tickets to see him tomorrow, the boy currently trying not to show he is freaking out as much as Phil was trying not to show how nervous he was. 

Thoughts that maybe Dan will dislike him once he see him kept clouding his mind, that maybe he will get tired of him, that Dans opinion of Phil will change and Phil will lose him. Rationally, Phil knew he was just being insecure. None of what he was thinking would be likely ever happen and he would only stop dwelling on it once Dan was standing in front of him without the view of a computer screen between them. When he could reach out and touch Dans skin...intertwine his hands with his.

So the night went on, until it got too late that Dan had to hang up or he would never wake up on time to catch his train.

Only Phil, once hanging up, laid in bed staring at his Buffy poster on his ceiling. Overthinking and worrying himself into a wide-awake state had become an increasingly frequent affair ever since Dan brought the tickets. For Phil, he was one parts nerves mixed with 2 parts excitement and just a dash of fear.

He just had to shut his eyes and turn his brain off, unplug his thoughts and erase his fears. If only it was that easy. Tossing and turning in waves of green and blue cotton it seemed impossible to switch off. His body was a live wire buzzing his brain with a nervous energy, a hum of anxiety ticking away under his skin.

The waiting before an event was always something Phil hated. He hated how his mind over thought a dozen different situations and a million interpretations of how events could happen, worst case scenarios and all of his insecurities manifested into these imagined scenes. He wished that time could be fast forwarded. That he could wish that he could skip this like a movie to get to the best part.

Only he couldn’t...and he hated it.


End file.
